Comparison

ibis Paint vs Core Image Tools

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

ibis Paint

This professional drawing application offers a vast array of brushes, materials, and fonts for digital art creation. Record your drawing process, utilize advanced layer features, and access helpful rulers and filters. It's designed for artists seeking powerful tools on their mobile devices.

Highlights
  • Over 47,000 brushes
  • Unlimited layers
  • Drawing process recording
  • Stroke stabilization
  • Various ruler types
  • Clipping mask features
  • Advanced text tool
Features
Read full description

For everyone around the world who wants to draw and animate, freely and without pressure. ibisPaint is a full-featured illustration and animation app for smartphones and tablets, with over 500 million cumulative downloads across the series. "Drawing looks hard" — this app is made especially for people who think that. A creative experience that doesn't compromise, an interface simple enough to use without hesitation, and a comfortable familiarity that grows the more you use it. ibisPaint keeps serving as an easy entry point for anyone to start "drawing," while continually expanding what's possible — from a single illustration to frame-by-frame animation, and on to videos with background music and audio. This app is the ad-free version of ibisPaint X. Unlocking all features additionally requires purchasing Premium Membership (an in-app purchase); in that case, downloading ibisPaint X and purchasing Premium Membership there works out cheaper. With over 130,000 brushes, 30,000+ materials, 3,000+ fonts, 86 image filters, 46 screentones, 27 layer blending modes, vector tools, a reference window, radial and symmetry rulers, animated filters, and an AI Disturbance feature, ibisPaint packs in serious functionality that rivals PC illustration software. It's a one-stop app that goes beyond drawing illustrations — into animation production, and even recording and sharing your creative process as a time-lapse video. It's chosen by people of all ages, countries, and experience levels around the world. *Drawing Tutorial YouTube Channel We post lots of videos on how to make the most of ibisPaint. Please subscribe! https://youtube.com/ibisPaint *Supported Digital Styluses https://ibispaint.com/stylus/supported_digital_stylus.jsp?platformType=1 *About Purchase Plans https://ibispaint.com/lecture/index.jsp?no=26 * If you do not cancel auto-renewal at least 24 hours before the free trial ends, you will be automatically charged upon renewal. *About App Access Permissions This app may access various device features to provide the service and improve usability. No access permission is required to use this app — all of the following are optional. You may decline any of these optional permissions. Even if declined, the app's core features remain available, but some features that require the relevant permission may be limited. •Photos/videos in your photo library To import artwork files and images, and to save the artwork files, images, and videos you create •Microphone audio input To connect and communicate with supported peripherals such as digital styluses •Bluetooth communication To connect and communicate with supported peripherals such as digital styluses •Push notifications To deliver notifications related to your artwork, app update information, and important announcements *Questions & Bug Reports We're unable to respond to questions or bug reports left in reviews. Please contact our support desk below instead. https://ssl.ibis.ne.jp/en/support/Entry?svid=25 *ibisPaint Terms of Service https://ibispaint.com/agreement.jsp

About

Core Image Tools

This app offers over 100 image editing tools with a simple interface for various effects. Easily edit, enhance, resize, and apply filters to your photos across multiple devices. Its intuitive workflow allows for seamless, step-by-step image manipulation without complex file management.

Highlights
  • Over 100 image editing tools
  • Simple and intuitive user interface
  • Multi-platform support (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Vision)
  • Resize images with added pixels
  • Flip and mirror functionality
  • Various blur effects
  • Chroma-keying tools
Read full description

Over 100 powerful image editing tools, presented in the simplest user interface. Like most workshops, you use several tools to accomplish a task. Core Image Tools is a large toolbox to reach into, to accomplish many complex effects, one simple step at a time. Lightweight yet Powerful: Edit, enhance, resize, rotate, & add effects to your photos|images from the palm of your hand, while you're on the go, or also from your desktop|laptop. Multi-Platform: Use the same app across your devices - iPhones, iPads, Macs, & Vision. Super-Simple Workflow: Pick a Photos image, apply an effect, tap save - done! Want more? Pick that saved image, apply some other effect to it, tap save - done! Loop the image through as many edits|effects as desired & always have a hardcopy in Photos of each step along the way. Plus you'll always have your original, & never had to type in a single filename throughout the entire process. Resize Images: ACTUALLY resize images, not just crop them down or zoom in. Also, you can ADD color|transparent|semi-transparent pixels to any edge of an image to resize it, or offset it, using 'Border | Underlay'. Flip|Mirror: Quickly mask|mirror a brand name out of your selfie. Flip|mirror an image, horizontally and|or vertically, with one tap. Use 'Skew' to straighten, keystone-correct, zoom, mirror, & crop all at once. Smooth: Use 'Blur, Selfie Smoother' to iron out a few wrinkles, de-focus skin blemishes, or smooth out other unwanted details. Line|Edge Drawn: Make an image look as if it was drawn|sketched using an ink pen, pencil, charcoal, colored pencils, colored chalk, light-pen, watercolored, wax-scratched (scratch-art), or made entirely out of dots|square pixels|points|hex-pixels|or crystalized. Bump Distortion: Kids of all ages (Mom? Dad?) love to swell up, or shrink down, faces & parts of people - give dad a superhero chin, a sibling one big eye & one little one, a bubbled alien-forehead of a friend - endless fun. Wish you had a smaller nose - shrink it. Wish you had bigger biceps or shoulders - pump 'em up. Wonder what implants would look like - find out. Zoom in on, & bring attention to, any feature in an image, especially for technical uses, like highlighting a capacitor on a PCB, or a component of a wiring schematic. Overlay Images: Including resizing, repositioning, & rotating them. Overlay your logo or business card over an image. Also, you can make an entire image of a transparent, or semi-transparent color & overlay that over your image, adding a color filter effect to the entire image. Chroma-Keyers (6 types!): Remove red, green, or blue-screen, or any color. Maybe make transparent overlays out of them? Maybe use 'Polygon | Star' to make color-keyed shapes for transparency masks. Checkerboard: Make checkerboard designs - just pick your colors, including clear|transparent. Blurs: Gaussian Blur, Zoom Blur, Motion Blur, Glow|Bloom, & other blur effects. 3D|Graphics|Cube Images: Make your textures|shaders, tile them, rotate them, make normal|bump maps from them for enhanced lighting effects. Mirrored|seamless tiles, multicolored gradients (linear & radial, plus gradients scale perfectly & tile infinitely from one small image - very efficient). Use 'Alpha as Grayscale' to map out image transparencies for your texture|shader's opacity channel. The best skybox|cube image tools too! Color & Light Adjusters: Many options - brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, gamma, vibrance, opacity. Try 'Dark Document Enhancer' on a dark document or a scan that you want to enhance. Grayscale Images: Select from 7 grayscale modes each honed for specific imaging challenges. Animated Image Player: Play, pause, slow down, speed-up, & reverse animated images. Kaleidoscopes: Do you like kaleidoscopes? Oh yeah! Gotcha covered there! Over a dozen types. Infinite possibilities just from one image, & the default image is of the most beautifully colored flowers. Developers: Make App Icons, Buttons, & Radio buttons.

Screenshots

ibis Paint4 screens
Core Image Tools4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Core Image Tools at $0.99 against ibis Paint's $15.99. Core Image Tools also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 7) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). ibis Paint's advantage is ratings volume (4.1K vs 3) and chart position (#4 vs unranked). On ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

ibis Paint costs $15.99 and Core Image Tools $0.99 up front. ibis Paint sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $4.49 per month. Core Image Tools asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Core Image Tools holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ibis Paint has 4.1K ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 86% of ibis Paint's written reviews are positive against 100% of Core Image Tools's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ibis Paint ships an update monthly, Core Image Tools every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard9 real differences · 2 level
ibis Paint versus Core Image Tools: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameteribis PaintCore Image Tools
Price$15.99$0.99 — better
Rating4.7 (4.1K ratings)5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews86.2% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings4.1K — better3
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium — betterPaid
Best chart rank#4 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS15.0 — better18
Further details — not scored
Size118 MB60 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developeribis inc.Lino Bailey

Customer experience

ibis Paint

All ratings4,080 ratings
Positive94.1%
Neutral2.2%
Negative3.7%
Written reviews810 reviews
Positive86.2%
Neutral5.6%
Negative8.3%

Core Image Tools

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

ibis Paint

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Speedpaint feature not recording all actions
  • Blurring tool causing color leakage
  • Layers not working as expected on certain devices
  • Crashes when opening large files

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add animation tools and features
  • Implement better organization options like folders
  • Improve search and filtering for brushes
  • Add blending and liquify tools
  • Allow importing custom brushes and textures
Show 1 more
  • Improve speed and stability for larger canvases

Core Image Tools

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

7 purchases

ibis Paint

Subscriptions2
  • Premium Membership (Monthly plan)7 Days trial$4.491 Month
  • Premium Membership (Yearly plan)1 Month trial$27.991 Year
One-time5
  • Smart Credit 300pt$2.99
  • Smart Credit 900pt$8.99
  • Smart Credit 2,500pt$23.99
Show 2 more
  • Smart Credit 5,000pt$44.99
  • Smart Credit 10,000pt$79.99
None

Core Image Tools

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ibis Paint free?
ibis Paint costs $15.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Core Image Tools free?
Core Image Tools costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, ibis Paint or Core Image Tools?
Core Image Tools is rated higher. ibis Paint averages 4.7 out of 5 from 4.1K ratings, while Core Image Tools averages 5.0 from 3 ratings.
Do ibis Paint or Core Image Tools have ads?
Neither ibis Paint nor Core Image Tools shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ibis Paint or Core Image Tools?
ibis Paint ships an update monthly, and Core Image Tools every 2 weeks. Most recently, ibis Paint was updated on October 15, 2026 and Core Image Tools on October 8, 2026.

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